


would you call me crazy to my face

by newrromantics



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:10:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4703909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newrromantics/pseuds/newrromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>blood and war; my hands are still dirty, can i even be cleansed? -- buffy the vampire slayer drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	would you call me crazy to my face

_if you think you've been redeemed, then i wouldn't want to be_ ( **faith** )

 

 

Lungs full of air. Lungs full of salt. Breathe in, breathe out. Her arm is covered in tattoos, spiraling upwards and upwards and every time Faith catches a glimpse of it, she feels a chill run up and down her spine.  
  
It's different here. (Of course it's different here, Faith. This is jail). Her sins don't wash away each time she steps underneath the communal shower. Her anger doesn't melt every time someone sneers at her. Her strength doesn't fade for every time she's beat up.  
  
Breathe in, breathe out. Her only friends are herself; a stranger; and a guard. It's more than she's ever had before, she thinks as she lies awake at night, staring up at the ceiling. (Buffy, Angel, were they her friends?). He visits her sometimes, sits across from her, stares at her through the glass; he wants to find redemption, she doesn't know if she deserves it.  
  
Angel's can still be saved. Faith doesn't know if she wants to be saved; her wings were clipped at birth, her future given to her the moment she was born to a mother who preferred reality T.V. and a good swig of vodka over parent-teacher nights, her fortune told when she was given a watcher and a stake and told to save the world.  
  
(The only thing that ever needed saving was herself).  
  
"I stabbed a guy." One of her inmates says, short and pretty and blonde - _Buffy_ , her mind screams but it's not her at all. Her inmate doesn't look like the type to stab a guy, gut him until he can't breathe but she doesn't exactly look like she roams graveyards at night, looking for the next big thrill. Doesn't look like the sorta girl to team up with the mayor of a sweet, little town situated atop of a Hellmouth and try and bring the whole world down.  
  
Sometimes she thinks about him. Late, late at night when the only sound is the tattooed girl sleeping underneath Faith's bunk's light snoring. Thinks about how it's the only time in her life she's ever felt loved, from the inside out, from her head to her toes and warm and fuzzy all over. He was the only person who ever acted like he cared for her, gave her everything her pretty, little heart desired. Handed over the childhood that was robbed by a family that had more important things happening than her and a destiny that meant she was supposed to die young. Sometimes, she regrets it; other times she just wants to go back to it.  
  
Her name is Alice, twenty-three and a half, a two year old son waiting in a crib at home with a daddy that doesn't care and all she did was rob a bank, trying to make a little cash to support herself and her son and to walk away from a fist that wouldn't stop pummeling into her face. Her laugh is short and clipped, an ugly sound that resonates through the halls. Tough and strong an no-nonsense. It's the first time Faith has been afraid of someone other than herself.  
  
Alice isn't the only one in these halls that has a sob story that sometimes makes Faith curl her hands into fists to stop herself from caring, (because if she doesn't care, if she doesn't care, then it's no big deal and she's still five by five and she's still chill and she hasn't fucked up at all; she's still _five by five_ ). Faith finds herself drawn to Alice, to the girl who seeks violence out like it's a part-time hobby - wasn't that Faith just a few months ago? It's harder and harder to distance herself from the wrong she's committed and who she is.  
  
Faith craves redemption because she knows she likes saving and helping and being the hero. But she's got a mouth that won't quit and a history with sins a mile long and it's a hard and lonely place in between the blue walls, so sometimes, just times, she sits with bad kids and remembers the good old days when she would cut up a demon and stake a vamp and cause a little destruction.  
  
(Because when she's lonely, and she's always lonely, it's a lonely world for her, she wants to lash out; paint the town in red).  
  
Redemption is a rocky road, indeed.

 

_i'll keep my hand on your trigger finger_ ( **buffy/faith** )

 

 

Her mouth is full of blood. "Kill me, kill me, kill me." It's empty words, thrown into a parking lot and she's holding up a knife, waving it around like a mad-woman on the run. Point that trigger at your hard, bow down, bow down, bow down--  
  
Crazy girls. Silly girls. Murderous girls. Run, run, run. "Having fun?" Faith asks, her eyes are bright and her lips are tight and she's looking at Buffy with a mixture of love and hate; complicated is always fun! Buffy rolls her eyes, missing each punch Faith throws. Her brunette counterpart is messy, all the passion and zero the skill; Kendra was the opposite, all the skill and zero the passion. Buffy briefly wonders where she falls on the line, moderate skill and moderate passion? It doesn't sound right to her ears.  
  
One, two, three --- Faith goes for another punch, round-house kick, double-flip. In another life Buffy would know the moves like a strict dance routine, pom-poms in the air and valley-girl smile plastered on. One two three --- kick, kick, kick. "Pretty girl," Faith sing-songs. "Fight back." She snarls.  
  
If this was last Tuesday, the two of them would just be playing pretend, practicing for the real thing later that night when they battled real demons and monsters; block, block, block. Buffy pulls herself up, throwing a swinging punch in Faith's general direction (miss, on purpose, of course).  
  
Her hair is pretty like that, Buffy thinks, her eyes are shining bright, and she's beautiful, even when she's trying to kill her: she's beautiful.

 

_It’s like drowning but you just won’t fucking die._  
  
— Urban Dictionary definition of unrequited love

( **buffy/faith** )

 

 

It's like being burnt from the inside out, roasted like a marshmallow and then she takes a bite; _sweet_ , she says with her lips upturned. Faith thinks this might be the sweetest hell she ever has come across, watching Buffy spread out against her bed, head propped up on her headboard and banging her head along to a pop boy band jam. It's not Faith's taste, the song is girly in a way that Faith is unable to relate to (she's never been a bubblegum pop cheerleader with hopes and dreams and seeing good in every corner of the world; she's never been like Buffy) but she likes seeing the best girl she's ever meet looking like she's floating on cloud nine.

"Do you ever feel like the whole world is burning?" Buffy asks, the two of them are sitting on her window sill, sitting so close they're touching - it's the most beautiful feeling in the world to be pressed up so close to her, her whole body feels like it's burning so _yes_ she feels like the whole world is burning. Buffy's meaning vampires and other creepy-crawly's but Faith can't stop thinking about how it burns to touch her, to look at her, to see her when she closes her eyes and goes to sleep but to know she can never have her. (Buffy loves Angel and Buffy hasn't shown any interest in girls).

Buffy is everywhere she goes--her reflection in the mirror, the other shape of her heart, her stakes and her knives and her battle weapons, in the flowers that still grow in Winter. Buffy is everywhere except for next to her, wrapped up in her, kissing her -- the one place Buffy will never be. It feels like her world is on fire and no amount of water is ever going to stop the pain.

_It's like drowning_ , Buffy had said late one night, the two of them sitting up on gravestone's, facing opposite from each-other. _But you just won't fucking die._ Faith had been talking about loving someone who'd never love you back, switching the name Buffy for the name Bob, and Buffy had sighed with hearts in her eyes, like the feeling was all too familiar. For a moment it lit her heart with hope that she'd never come to expect with anything but it'd quickly been washed away when Buffy startled rattling off Angel's name, her heart tightening in her chest as she nodded her head and pretended like it didn't hurt.

(But it hurts. It hurts all the damn time.)

It's like burning. It's like drowning. It's like swallowing blades. Unrequited love is the only sure thing that's gonna kill Faith in the end.

 

_once upon a time, in a magical land far, far away, a girl wrote her own happy ending._ ( **fred** )

 

 

When Fred was younger (much younger; a little girl in piggy-tails playing in a big backyard with her whole future ahead of her) she used to dream about falling in love, the same way all the little girls her age did; handsome prince, white horse, happily ever after. Fred used to want to be Cinderella, she was the opposite of everything Fred was but there was a charming quality about her that Fred admired; her determination, her cheeriness even when times were tough, the way she never gave up and the dress she wore was never hard on the eyes.

 

_I don't want to be saved_ , Fred will whisper when she's older (but not a lot older, not old enough to know the pain and misery and hardship that her life will later bring) to a boy that doesn't love her the way Fred knows she deserves to be loved. Fred thinks she loves him, _oh, she loves him so much_ , but she knows that he doesn't love her. He calls her a slut, a tease, a whore, when she walks away from him and she tries not to let the words burn, she tries not to let him see her cry, (but the words burn her skin, branding her for the other boys, a big neon sign saying _STAY AWAY_ ). Her parents tell her it'll be okay, that it'll all work out in the end, that one day a handsome man will come and find her and sweep her off to his castle.

 

Fred moves to the big city, with flashing lights and fast cars, and she falls in love with science. Her heart pounds so fast it might break every time she solves an equation. It's like nothing she's ever experienced before. Her room-mate who she's never gotten along with calls her a freak and ditches her most nights to go hang out with her friends, leaving Fred to an empty room and all her books. It's the most thrilling experience as she reads them. Science is a fairy tale she decides, as she's curled up in bed one night reading. Science is the most lovely and beautiful thing she's ever experienced. It's complicated and simple and romantic and straight to the point, all at once. Science might just save her, she thinks.

 

Pylea is cold and dark and miserable. It's the most lonely place Fred has ever been and she's been a lot of lonely places. Fred has never been overtly glamorous _(not like the princesses she loves so much)_ but even she thinks living in a cave is beneath her, that she deserves better than living in a hole in a rock, fighting for her life. Fred just wants to go home -- Texas, L.A., anywhere that's not here. Demons are mean. Fred cleans for them, sweeping up their messes and tells herself this over and over again: I am Cinderella. I am Cinderella. I am Cinderella. Fred doesn't want anyone to save her anymore but the idea of a handsome prince on a white horse sweeping her off of her feet is more appealing by the second, until it's just a distant memory and she wonders what's real and what's not anymore.

 

_Handsome man saved me from the monsters_ , she says when she sees Angel. Her prince charming. Her handsome prince. Fred is Cinderella and Angel is Prince Charming and everything her parents said is right: everything is going to be okay.

 

(But in the end that's not the complete truth: Angel can't save her. Fred is the only one able to save herself and she's been saving herself for five years. Being cunning and smart and outwitting demons. Living longer than any other human that's ever come to Pylea. She figures out how to get out of Pylea and back to L.A. using science -- it ends up saving her, and she ends up saving herself, and saving everyone else. Fred is just too blind living in childhood dreams to realise it at the time).

 

L.A. is brighter and bigger than she remembers when she comes back, it's loud, so loud, and Fred has been in a cave, all alone for so long but -- but, she misses talking to other people, she misses walking down the street, she misses being curled up in bed and reading her science books and she misses going to the lab. Fred isn't able to slide right back into her old life straight away (that takes time) but she starts reading her books again and she starts letting herself breathe again, she starts rewriting the ending to her Happily Ever After. Fred starts living again, breathing in the city air and laughing so loud, smiling, smiling, always smiling. Fred lets herself make friends and forms herself a new family and has one of her articles published in a science magazine. Fred fights vampires and evil lawyers and falls in love with the handsome prince charming she'd always dreamed about when she was younger and when Gunn kisses her for the first time, it's like discovering science all over again. Suddenly the world isn't so cold and dark and miserable anymore, she puts Pylea in the past -- she's not living in a cave anymore. Five years of her life was stolen from her, it's about time she starts making up for it.

 

(In the end, this is what happens to Fred: she fights with Angel Investigations for so long - years and years and years, she watches as everyone faces their own battles and challenges and demons - inner and real - and she fights alongside them, because helping gives her the same rush science does, but then she decides she's missed science so much, _too_ much. Fred goes back to school, staking vampires only on the weekends. Fred runs into her room-mate once, in a coffee shop, the two of them smile at each other and then her room-mate rushes up to her, telling her how scared she was when Fred just disappeared out of nowhere. Fred laughs, and laughs, and tells her that's sweet of her. For a year she moves back to Texas because as much as she loves her family, she misses her birth family a bit, too. One year in Texas is enough to remind her why she left for L.A. But she's happy. Always happy. Gunn and her break up for a few months and it's the loneliest she's ever felt since Pylea, so she turns up on his doorstep in the middle of the day when it's pouring down with rain and asks him to marry her. In the end, her life is happy and long, so long, and she still thinks of herself as Cinderella sometimes but she no longer longs for fairy-tales from when she's a child; she's made her very own fairy-tale).

 

_you've spent your whole life sweating in an endless fever._ ( **darla** )

 

Darla doesn't remember a time before ballgowns and blood. It's hard enough to even remember that lifetime -- a lifetime of living in the shadows, running before you're caught (by the sun, by a hunter, or god forbid, by a slayer). It's funny what she finds herself remembering when she's turned human by Wolfram & Hart - she remembers Italy in the 1800's with Angelus touching her every curve. Germany in 1940 with Spike and Dru, feeling like an awfully awkward third wheel. Australia in 1970, by herself, too bright and sunny for a creature of the night to survive. Ireland in 1980, because she hasn't seen her boy in so long, she needs to remember him. Sunnydale in the 1990's, by her Master's side again, laughing with glee like she's a child; gone are the ballgowns and the rich lifestyle she'd indulged in for centuries.  
  
Darla doesn't remember what it felt like at all sometimes -- sometimes she just remembers how scared and little and alone she felt, watching as Angelus boasted and primed himself to be the centre of attention, how rejected she felt whenever he chose another girl -- a human -- over her, or when he made Drusilla his finest creation. He was all she wanted at times but she never seemed to be enough for him despite the fact that she gave him life. One moment stands out to her in clear clarity -- Sunnydale, circa late 90's. Angel and the Slayer, the little blonde who flirts like a school girl with wide eyes and flirty lashes. He looked at her like he used to look at Darla; the same love struck dazed look in his eyes, like he couldn't quite believe this was his life.  
  
Darla remembers her victims, mostly. Girls in Victorian Dresses, dressed to the nines. Boys in laid-back jeans and a patterned T-Shirt. Girls with long dressers, prim collars, bright colours. Boys wearing this, boys wearing that -- all tasting delicious, the most decadent wine she's ever tasted. Her victims who screamed, high shrill voices that added to the fun and her victims that whimpered, poor excuses for human kind who wanted to die. And oh, she remembers the ones she turned, all the fun she had with them -- the boy named Marcus in a year that escapes her, in between a patch of time where her and Angelus were on the outs. He was a winner, that one, smart and sharp, funny and witty, with a tongue that wouldn't quit; if she hadn't loved Angelus quite so dearly she would have kept Marcus forever, instead she drove a stake through his heart the moment her lover returned for her. There was that Girl named Lillian, 1900, such a proper lady; beautiful, worldly, rich. Her daddy had brought her everything and Darla had promised her more; she had given her more, she'd given Lillian forever. Richard, Caitlin, Summer, Don, Andrew, William, Clarissa, Robert. Names and faces and dust; none of her creations ever were allowed to survive, none except for Angelus, her sweet, sweet boy.  
  
Darla remembers Angelus the most, he always held her heart more than any other; there was something about the two of them that were intricately linked. He was her heart and she was the only soul he was ever supposed to need. She remembers Paris, killing off a group of young girls for fun. Rome, that 20 year old boy in the alley-way. Greece, America, Africa -- every country, every victim of theirs, every time he touched her. Darla remembers one time on a boat, traveling from Ireland to America, back when they were just new to each other and he was just a baby vampire, but a few weeks old; he had pressed his lips to the shell of her ear and told her a secret, _I've always been a bit mad, love. Father never did like it. But you - you've given me everything I've ever sought in life._ He had kissed down her neck, down and down and down, until all she could do was feel; feel him, and it was that moment that she knew she was a goner when it came to him; he was bloody and brilliant, her most devious creation and he ended up hurting her more than anyone.  
  
Darla remembers Angel. His stupid soul. His refusal to sink his teeth into a small babe like he'd done so many times before. His puppy-dog eyes. He'd never looked like that as a human, he'd been a jolly thing, dancing and smoking and drinking, looking up girl's skirts. This was not the man she turned. This was not the man she loved. This was not the man she knew. He had gotten down on his knees, his arms around her legs and cried and cried and cried. Darla had felt weak, so weak, he looked like Angelus -- but he wasn't him at all, he was so different. It would take more than one death to ever erase that moment from her mind; the sound of her heart shattering in her chest, breaking, cracking, breaking. It was so difficult not to love him. He was all she loved.  
  
Darla remembers sunlight evenings, her skin burning as she dared to let it catch flame. Drusilla laughing madly next to her, eternally a mad woman. Spike leaning against Dru, his tongue tracing the shell of her ear, her cheek, her lips; the two of them so blindly in love. It had made her heart ache so much, never had she considered herself a weak woman before but Angelus was gone forever and sometimes the sun looked so enticing. Spike had grabbed her, pulling her back before any real damage could be done but Darla was an old woman, the sun needed to burn her for longer to ever hurt her. Dru had cried, burying her head in Darla's lap, _Daddy's never coming home!_ Wailing on the top of her lungs. _Daddy's going to fall in love!_  
  
Darla remembers the day she was turned. The Master on the edge of her bed and promising her a life forever; the greedy little thing that she was had took it, because even a normal life for her would of never been enough. Darla remembers how it felt to turn from whoever she was into Darla, strong, beautiful, craving blood. It had been by far the best moment of her life.

 

**Author's Note:**

> more chapters will be published whenever inspiration strikes i guess :) feel free to comment prompts or anything as well!


End file.
